AZDuffman's Blog

Day 7 is here. I am tired of telling my boss "hopefully it is close." Lets remember that I have spent 1 day on my new job and now 8 at Jury Duty by this point.

The group has mostly said "something happened" and knows we should convict on something. 4 have flipped to convict on the least serious charge. The foreman got a woman who flipped earlier to plea to them why they should switch. They switch, but very, very tentatively. Too much pushing on the other charges may flip them back. Annimated and forceful before, I kind of clam up here so as not to upset them. They are done deliberating, I can tell.

I suggest we go around one more time and state our feelings in a free-form way. Foreman likes the idea. I have the longest statement--it was my idea so not suprising. The hanger goes second and says he will never believe the victim and never change his mind. The "flippers" are kind saying under their breath "why are we even doing this?" They are still in a nullification mode. By now we have acquitted on 2 charges. We get one more free lunch and tell the judge no use going on. As court is still going on we have to wait, again, but this is the last wait, it is over, well almost.


THE AFTERMATH

When it is done we get sent to judges chambers. This is when it gets real surreal. Judge comes in and just talks to us like people. Thanks us. 10 minutes ago we could only ask serious questions in writen form--and anything above "I can't hear, can he speak up?" merits writing. Now she is just a person same as us. She even lets us ask questions about court in general. I ask a question about Grand Jury, thanking her adding constitutional things and court interest me. For the first time we can walk out of line to the jury room.

Now it gets really surreal. The "hanger" bolts out, but both attorneys come to thank us. That is fine, but then they ask what we thougtht, where they may have went wrong, things like that. I mean, both of them were there in the same conversation. It was as if we were grading moot-court. It was so casual we might as well been having a few beers.

Prosecuter said they expected to lose. Defense said when we were hung the first time he thought he was toast. I told the prosecuter where and how I had problems, a little less to the defense but just because he had less to correct and he was talking to some other jurors. I told about the "jury nullification" problem and that I was "NOT GUILTY" until the defendant took the stand.

Per PA law this must be retried, the charges may not be dropped. There can be a plea, but some jury will get 8 charges to try sometime in March. If the defender is not public he will keep billing hours. The ADA will keep the case in his file. The judge gets to hear it again. And the wheels of justice grind on.

Day 5 is here, consolidation prize is by now we are getting the "long term" rate of $24 a day vs the $9 or so for a short-term service. We earn every cent.

By now we are reading and understanding all of the 10 charges. Some are what I later called very "technical" involving body parts and penetration. Others are what I called "broad" meaning broad terms like "endanger." The group is split. Oddly it is mostly split by sides of the table, though that was not planned in any way. One woman is ready for a 100% guilty on all counts, one guy (my lunchmate) is 100% not guilty. I am in the middle, saying I belive inappropriate things happened but maybe not to the level we think.

Lunch is free and not bad, not great but not bad, and free!

One clear issue is some jurors have a major, major concern about sending this guy up for these charges. This is Pennsylvania. This is the state where Jerry Sandusky is still on everyone's mind. The defendant is 57. Conviction on the most serious charges means an effective life sentence. It means he will be branded a "Chester" upon arrival, where his life will be worse than the wreched until his dying day. He could be in the same cell tier as Sandusky--this is Pennsylvania and Sandusky is in a ChoMo unit. None of us takes that lightly, especially the men.

However, justice has two sides. I am one that reminds that there is a victim here, that the defendant has a 12 year old daughter at home, same age as when the defendant stated the abuse of her started. We are deadlocked on most items. We are trying to find rational ways to deliberate as we are reading each charge. they are very instructive as to what must be found in a legal sense.


Eventually we go home.

DAY 6

Debate has taken a turn. My former lunchmate I could once see us being friends, now he is getting tired of me and I of him. He is a holdout who has his mind made up. Fine, that is how the system works.

One charge is "endangerment." It is broad. It is a charge that you can use if you are not comfortable with the biggies, and it is NOT a sex-charge. We have 4 holdouts on it, and they are holding out on not for reasonable doubt, but other reasons. They say "endangering" is not definate, that it is a "fishing" charge, and that "by the way it is worded I could be charged for leaving a butterknife on the table."

I retort that the Commonwealth would throw out something so silly at the arraignement. And that it is not for us to decide the charge, only the guilt. I ask if they would feel better if we got a definition of "endanger" from the judge. They say they doubt it will matter but agree. Turned out it was a waste of time, there is no definition, the judge said *we* make the definition.

We tell the judge we are deadlocked. Some hope that is it. I state there is no way after a 3 day trial the judge accepts the first deadlock, she will send us back. The foreman reminds she can do it as many times as she wants. He and I are of the same mind on this case and the process, even if we do not say so. He will be the last other juror I see when it is over, our cars being the same direction before we part.

Judge does just as he and I suspect. Politely says try some more.
Eventually we can go home. Come back tomorrow, which is Thursday.

It is monday and we are back in court. Few of us had a relaxing weekend. Child molestation cases have testimony that is brutal. Most of the witnesses are for the defense, the Commonwealth had just the victim. Even with that, this is getting hard to follow. Dates and timelines are a mess. We get a layout of the house and that is hard to follow. Some juror even asked the judge to tell them to be more speciffic.

When you watch testimony on TV it is very rapid-fire. The actors are reading a script. In court someone has to transscribe the words. You do not talk at the same time as the other party, attorney, witness, or both. Another of those moments when you see reality is not TV, though there is a lot of it in those court shows.

Gem of the day is when the victim's grandmother is asked if she knew the accused was molesting the granddaughter. She says one of the most firm "NOs" you ever heard. When asked why she states, "because if I did this trial would be for me murdering him!" I believe any witness that says they would not cross grandma--I would not cross grandma.

Near the end of the day, both "our" and the "other" accused took the stand. Let me say, if you are ever accused be very careful if you take the stand. The parade of witnesses the defense put up was tearing down the prosecution case piece by piece. I could have acquitted in an hour. Then they came on the stand. Disaster, for them. What they said did not add up. How they said it was worse. Terrible.

Another lunch, in fact the last time we could leave the jury room for lunch. But the last time we had to pay for lunch, other than a tip.

We get back and time to deliberate. I firmly am against a vote right off the bat and tell everyone we cannot do that as we have a duty to DELIBERATE, even for a short while. Consensus is all over the place and we are feeling each other out. Roles are building and will continue. We get to leave at the end of the night, more than we can say for the cop-killer case. Word is they have just 7 of the needed 14 (12 plus alternates) or more.

We are to report by 9:00 today. This does not mean we START at 9:00, just that we report by then. As we later find out, the judge has 20 cases on most days, the others fit in around us. Some are in-and-out plea deals. It is made clear we will never know why we are waiting, just that we must. This day the judge said she would be late, and she is. Eventually we file into court. By midday lining up by number and walking in line into court will seem normal.

One kind of frustrating thing is the sidebars. When Jack McCoy goes to a sidebar you get to hear what they are saying. Here you do not, and sometimes the questioning line totally changes. You have to deal with it.

There are 2 defense attorneys, which means 2 cross-examinations. The attorney for the wife is clearly more experienced than the other two, and one juror says on one break he is a rising-star of sorts in his field. His job is easier, defending one far lesser charge than our defendant's 10, many of which are very serious.

Curiously, we are allowed to leave for lunch today. AZD's band of merry-men has expaned to 2 plus myself by now. Not discussing the case is hard, one guy tries and I give him a firm "shhhh." I tell him it is nothing personal but tell him the place we are eating is a known attorney-hangout, which it is. Later I will tell a female juror to put away a smartphone while looking up a legal definition, which were were told not to do.

It seems the oath we took, it is more than raising your hand. Anyone can say "I do" but as you see all of these attorneys, court personnel, and the judge you get the message just how serious it all really is. Afternoon of testimony then home for the weekend. Word is the cop-killer case still has a less-than-full juror pool.

"I'M A MAN, NOT A NUMBER---ooops, Juror #4, sir."

We have our numbers and those necklaces waiting for us when we get to the juror room. 6-7 of us there, awaiting the others. Wait will not be as long since we are ready to go this case seems to have gotten priority. The cop-killer case is still choosing as word on the street is they got only 2 jurors out of 50+ prospects. Sitting around the table we get to chat, get to know a little about each other. Fair mix of male/female. Discussion a mix of personal and what will be happening soon.

A word on the jury room. Strangely we were allowed to use smartphones for "business" or even make a call. As long as we were not researching the case it was cool. Outside cell phones or electronic devices of any kind were strictly forbotten. Inside there were two nice, clean restrooms. Plus a big table with chairs, and coffee. It nearly felt as if you had elite membership and were allowed to use the lounge.

Somewhere near noon they completed selection, but told us to just go have lunch as it was 11:30 or so at the time. A pattern started where one or more people wanted to come with me since I knew the places to eat, having worked on the same block on two previous jobs. I am happy to help, knowing what finding a decent place nearby at lunch can be hard. We come back and time to go.

We have to line up by number so we sit in the right, numbered juror chair. We are told to remain standing to be sworn. #5 starts to sit and I give him a tap-and-hand-signal to remain standing. He tanks me verbally, then by giving me the same signal when I screw up later. Teamwork at its best.

Opening arguments start followed by the prosecution. A word here is that you see mixed things. Some things are like you see on TV, nearly to a T. Othertimes the actors appear normal and human. Can't find a paper, not 100% sure of law or procedure. A few times the judge has to say the right way to ask something to do it correct by the law. There is one ADA and two defense attorneys as there is a second defendant (the guys wife) sitting on a lesser charge which the judge is deciding, she waived a jury trial. Tomorrow I will see if she made the right choice.

This goes on the rest of the day, we have to come back tomorrow, tomorrow being Friday.